100 DESIGNERS AND INTERIOR DESIGNERSwho are sharing le French Design around the world

Selection 2018 /2019

Project supported by PHILIPPE STARCK

France is a crossroads of paths running through Europe with an enriching potential for fertile sediments. But it is just a crossroads. Don’t expect delirious extravagances or a Calvinist-style austerity. France is a land of digestion, of reflection and of weighing in. This permanent weighing in calls for rigor plus a talent for being both critical and self-critical that propels the European creator in France to perpetually seek quality and timelessness. Ultimately, we are not as bad as we believe or as funny as we are seen to be. The success of this unique alchemy gives us the right to be pretentious, or some may say ambitious, according to one’s interpretation.

— Philippe Starck

WHAT IS LE FD100 LIST?

In January, VIA launches Le FD100, a list of 100 designers and interior designers who are sharing Le French Design around the world. This list is not a ranking but rather a photograph of French creation at a given moment: it includes the country’s leading names as well as its most promising profiles and stars of tomorrow. All convey the essential values of le French Design: art de vivre, creativity and industry, elegance and a touch of luxury, sustainable innovation, audacity, savoir-faire, balance, heritage, cultural openness and panache.

WHY THIS LIST ?

Le FD100 is a reward but it is also a responsibility.

The jury particularly noted a certain elegance, audacity and sense of balance when studying the 500 projects proposed.

These values are nourished by our history, trained in our schools and accompanied by our craftsmen and manufacturers. But they must also be expanded in a design world without borders.

To accompany this development and travel without cutting us off from our roots, le FD100 will be a reference point that gives an ongoing image of le French design and its evolutions as seen internationally. Once the list of those selected has been published in numerous countries and languages, various gallery and online exhibitions will be held. On January 16, 2019, the day the prizes will be awarded, an online data base will open that presents each project and shares a vision of design throughout the world.

This collective representation is made up of French designers, some who have long been ex-patriots, as well as foreigners who have moved to France because of their empathy with our values. It champions an attachment to quality in creation for a world that will be better conceived, more ethical and responsible and that counts on the strength and emulation of a community for sustainable innovation …

The French Touch means the audacity to welcome talents from abroad” Christian Blanckaert, former Director of Hermès International and a member of the think tank of 40 well-known personalities brought together by VIA.

— Christian Blanckaert

A PRESTIGIOUS, INTERNATIONAL JURY

VIA launched a call for applications that was open until September 17, 2018. Over 170 projects were received and shown to a jury made up of directors of public institutions, curators, gallery owners and prestigious well-known personalities in the international design field.

LIST OF JURY MEMBERS

De droite à gauche sur la photo:

Suvi Saloniemi, Design Museum, HELSINKI

Alain Dufour, World Design Summit

Cherine Magrabi, House of Today, BEIRUT

Agnes Kwek, (Présidente du jury), DesignSingapore Council

Miryon Ko, 21_21 Design Sight, TOKYO

Jochen Eisenbrand, Vitra Design Museum, WEIL AM RHEIN

Christopher Turner, V&A Museum, LONDON

Cristina Grajales, Cristina Grajales Gallery, NEW YORK

Anthony Morey, a+d museum, LOS ANGELES

Maria Wettergren, Maria Wettergren Gallery

Ikko Yokoyama, M+ museum for visual culture, HONG-KONG

The jury met in Paris on November 6th, 2018 to deliberate and establish the prestigious list that will be introduced to the public on January 16th, 2019 at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs in the presence of Philippe Starck.

By training so many people in these professions, there is ultimately a strength, an energy and an army of French designers”

— Patrick Jouin, designer

THE MAJOR DIRECTIONS OF THE SELECTION

The list, an indicator of the reality of creation and the porosity between its different fields, is a balanced breakdown between architects, product designers and interior designers. 50 years of French creation are thus represented from studios created in the 1970s to new ones created within the last 1 to 3 years.

Le FD100 incarnates an area that is increasingly invested by women who make up almost 40% of the selection.

Finally, le French Design also owes its prestige to designers spread over an area at different scales: 15% are based in the Paris region and 20% have their main offices abroad.

Projects, projects, projects …

From a luxury hotel in Sri Lanka to a restaurant in Tbilissi, Georgia or a wine cellar along the banks of the Douro River in Portugal, from a company headquarters in the City of London to a museum in New Delhi, from the interior design of an ocean liner, yacht or private jet to a hair salon in New York, from handmade furniture for a hotel in Nigeria to the conception of an innovative neighborhood in Shanghai, from ethical preoccupations in Thailand to monumental installations in Kazakhstan, from renovations of apartment buildings in Warsaw to urban furniture in Miami, from a shopping mall in Stockholm to a casino in Macao, from a collection of furniture for co-working in Turkey to a gigantic alabaster table delivered to California … every project bears witness to the imagination, intellectual flexibility and desire to share … and thus create a better, more sustainable world, since they have been … “designed” better. 